Sos the Rope

CHAPTER SIX

"Pitch your tents well up on the hillside, two men or one family to a unit, with a spare pack stacked across the river," Sos directed the group when they arrived in the valley. "Two men will walk guard day and night around the perimeter; the rest will work by day and be confined to their tents by night, without exception. The night guards will be entirely covered with mesh at all times and will scrupulously avoid any contact with the flying white moths. There will be a four-man hunting party and a similar carrying party each day. The rest will dig our trench."

"Why?" one man demanded. "What's the point of all this foolishness?" It was Nar, a blustering dagger who did not accept orders readily.

Sos told them why.

"You expect us to believe such fantastic stories by a man without a weapon?" Nar shouted indignantly. "A man who raises birds instead of fighting?"

Sos held his temper. He had known that something like this would come up. There was always some boor who thought that honor and courtesy did not extend beyond the cirele. "You will stand guard tonight. If you don't choose to believe me, open your face and arms to the moths," He made the other assignments, and the men got busy setting up the camp.

Tyl approached him. "If there is trouble with the men ..." he murmured.

Sos understood him. "Thanks," he said gruffly.

There was time that afternoon to mark off the trench he had in mind. Sos took a crew of men and laid out light cord, tying it to pegs hammered into the ground at suitable intervals. In this fashion, they marked off a wide semicircle enclosing the packs stored beside the river with a radius of about a quarter mile.

They ate from stored rations well before dusk, and Sos made a personal inspection of all tents, insisting that any defects be corrected immediately. The object was to have each unit tight: no space open large enough for a moth to crawl through. There were grumbles, but it was done. As night filled the valley, all but the two marching guards retired to their tents, there to stay sealed in until daylight.

Sos turned in, satisfied. It was a good beginning. He wondered where the moths hid during the day, where neither sun nor shrew could find them.

Say, who shared his tent, was not so optimistic. "There's going to be trouble in Red River Valley," he remarked in his forthright manner.

"Red River Valley?"

"From that song you hum all the time. I know 'em all. Won't you think of the valley you're leaving, Oh, how lonely and sad it will be; Oh, think of the fond heart you're breaking, and the grief-'"

"All right!" Sos exclaimed, embarrassed.

"Well, they aren't going to like digging and carrying," Sav continued, his usually amiable face serious. "And the kids'll be hard to keep in at night. They don't pay much attention to regulations, you know. If any of them get stung and die-"

"Their parents will blame me. I know." Discipline was mandatory. It would be necessary to make a convincing demonstration before things got out of hand.

The opportunity came sooner than he liked. In the morning Nar was discovered in his tent. He had not been stung by the moths. He was sound asleep.

Sos called an immediate assembly. He pointed out three men at random. "You are official witnesses. Take note of everything you see this morning and remember it." They nodded, perplexed.

"Take away the children," he said next. Now the mothers were upset, knowing that they were about to miss something important; but in a,few minutes only the men and about half the women remained.

He summoned Nar. "You are accused of dereliction in the performance of your duty. You were assigned to mount guard, but you slept in the tent instead. Have you any defense to make?"

Nar was vexed at being caught but decided to bluster it Out. "What are you going to do about it, bird-man?"

This was the awkward point. Sos could not take up his sword and remain true to his oath, though he had no doubt of his ability to handle this man in the circle. He could not afford to wait the weeks until Sol would show up again. He had to take action now.

"Children might have died through your neglect," he said. "A tent might have been torn unnoticed, or the shrews might have come after all by night. Until we have security from these dangers, I can not allow one man's laziness to endanger the group."

"What danger? How come none of us have seen this terrible horde of itty-bitty critters?" Nar exclaimed, laughing. There were a few smiles around the group. Sos saw that Sav was not smiling; he had predicted this.

"I'm granting you a trial, however," Sos said evenly. "By combat."

Nar drew his two daggers, still laughing. "I'm gonna carve me a big bird!"

"Take care of the matter, Tyl," Sos said, turning away. He forced his muscles to relax so that he would not show his tension, knowing that he would be branded a coward.

Tyl stepped forward, drawing his sword. "Make a circle," he said.

"Now just a minute!" Nar protested, alarmed. "It's him I got the fight with. Bird-brain, there."

Stupid perched on Sos's shoulder, and for once he wished the bird's loyalty lay elsewhere.

"You owe service to Sol," Tyl said, "and the forfeit is your life, as it is for all of us. He appointed Sos leader of this party, and Sos has appointed me to settle matters of discipline."

"All right!" Nar shouted, brazen through his fear. "Try one of these in your gut!"

Sos continued to face away as the sounds of battle commenced. He was not proud of himself or of what he had to do, but he had seen no alternative. If this action served to prevent recurrences, it was worth it. It had to be.

There was a scream and a gurgle, followed by the thud of a body hitting the ground. Tyl came up to stand beside him, wiping the bright life blood from his sword. "He was found guilty," he said gently.

Why, then, was it Sos who felt guilty?

In a week the trench was complete, and the crews were working on the ramp just inside it. Sos insisted that the bottom of the trench be level and that the water be diverted to flow through it steadily. "Little dribble like that won't stop the beasties," Say remarked dubiously. "Anyhow, didn't you say they could swim?"

"Right." Sos went on to supervise the installation of mounted fire-strikers, set in the inner edge of the trench and spaced every hundred yards.

Meanwhile the bearers were hauling drums of alcohol from all cabins in range-but not for drinking. They were stored at intervals along the ramp.

Another week passed, and still the shrews did not come. A row of battle circles was set up, and a huge central tent fashioned of sewn family-tent sheets-but the group continued to camp at night in the tight little tents across the river. The hunting parties reported that game was moving into the area: deer and wild goats, followed by wolves and large cats and a few fierce pigs, as well as more numerous rodents. There was fresh meat for all.

Tyl went on enforcing discipline, usually with the sticks; one execution, though of doubtful validity, had been enough. But the seeming pointlessness of the labor made the men surly; they were accustomed to honorable fighting, not menial construction, and they did not like taking orders from a coward who bore no weapon.

"It would be better if you did it yourself," Sav said, commenting on one of Tyl's measures. "It needs to be done-we all know that-but when he does it it makes him the leader. No one respects you-and that bird doesn't help much, either."

Sav was such a harmless, easygoing sort that it was impossible to take offense at what he said. It was true: Sos was accomplishing his purpose at the expense of his reputation, which had not been good to begin with. None of these people knew the circumstances of his deprivation of weapons or his bond to Sol, and he did not care to publishize it.

Tyl was the de facto leader of the valley group-and if Sol did not return, Tyl would surely take over. He had had aspirations for a tribe of his own, and he was a highly skilled warrior. Like Sol, he had spurned inept opponents, and so hid accumulated only one tribesman in his travels; but also like Sol, he was quick enough to appreciate what could be,done with ordinary men once the way was shown. Was he being genuinely helpful-or was he biding his time while he consolidated the group around himself?

Sos could not carry a weapon. He was dependent upon Tyl's good will and his own intellectual abilities. He had a year of service to give, and he meant to complete it honorably. After that-

At night it was Sola's face he saw, and Sola's body. he felt touching his, her hair upon his shoulder. Here, too, he would never prevail without a weapon. The truth was that he was as dangerous to Sol's ambitions as was Tyl, because he wanted what only complete leadership would bring. Sola would not accept the bracelet of the second warrior of the tribe, or the third or fourth. She had been candid about that.

Yet even if he carried a weapon, he could not defeat Sol in the circle, or even Tyl. It would be fatally unrealistic ever to assume otherwise. To that extent his disarmed state was his protection.

Finally the shrews struck. They boiled over the hillside in mid-afternoon and steamed toward the camp defenses. He was almost glad to see them; at least this would vindicate his elaborate precaütións. They had been gone a long time, as the resurgence of game proved; it would have destroyed his program, paradoxically, if they had not come atall.

"Dump the barrels!" he shouted, and the men assigned to this task and drilled for it repetitively knocked open the containers of alcohol and began pouring them carefully into that shallow moat.

"Women and children to the tents!" Protesting shrilly, now that the excitment had come, the families forded the river and mounted the hillside.

"Stand by with weapons!" And all those not otherwise occupied took up the defensive formation, somewhat shamefaced as they saw the size of their adversaries. There were fifteen men and several of the older boys present; the hunting party happened to be out.

The barrel-dumpers finished their job, not without regretful glances at the good intoxicant going to waste, and stood by the extended wooden handles of the fire-strikers. Sos held off, hoping that the - hunters would appear, but there was no sign of them.

The shrews surged up to the moat and milled about, mistrusting the smell of it. Then, as before, the bolder ones plunged in, and the mass crossing commenced. Sos wondered whether the animals could become intoxicated in the same fashion as men.

"Fire!" he yelled. The assigned drummer beat a slow, regular cadence, and in absolute unison the men struck the igniters and leaped back. This had been one of the really sore spots of the training: grown men dancing to a musical rhythm.

A sheet of flame shot up from the moat, and the stench and smoke of improperly combusted alcohol filled the air. They were fenced in by a rising semicircle of fire. Watching it, the "dancers" shielded their eyes and gaped; now they understood what could have happened to the late man.

Sos had worked this out carefully. He knew from his readings that alcohol in its various forms would float on water and, if ignited, would burn more readily there than on land, where dirt or wood would absorb it. The layer of water in the moat offered a perfect surface for it, and the current would carry it along the entire perimeter. He was glad to have the proof; even he had had his doubts, since common sense encouraged him to believe that water quenched all fires. Why hadn't he thought to spill a few drops of the stuff into a basin of water and experiment?

Some animals had gotten through. The men were busy already beating the ground with sticks and clubs, trying to flatten the savage but elusive creatures. Several warriors cursed as they were bitten. There was no longer any reason to disparage the ferocity of the tiny enemies.

The burning vapors sank; the alcohol volatized too rapidly to last long. At Sos's signal the men rolled up more barrels from the big central tent. Here they stopped-they could not dump more alcohol until the blaze died entirely, or they would be trapped in the midst of the rising fire and possibly blown apart by ignition of the barrels themselves. This was a problem Sos had not anticipated; the main conflagration had subsided, but individual flames would remain for some time at the canal banks where fuel had seeped into the ground.

Tor the sworder came up, his black beard singed. "The upper end is clear," he gasped. "If you dump there-"

Sos cursed himself for not thinking of that before. The current had swept the upriver section of the moat clean, and the shrews were already swarming across to consume their roasted vanguard and climb the breastwork. Alcohol could be dumped there a barrel at a time, and the current would feed it through the entire retrenchment at a reduced rate and enable them to maintain a controlled fire. "Take care of it!" he told Tor, and the man ran off, shouting to those nearby for help.

Everyone was occupied, stamping and striking at the endless supply of miniature appetites. The swarm beyond the moat reminded Sos again of a division of invading ants, except that the mammals lacked the organization of the insects. The flames came up again as Tor put his plan into operation, but somehow the numbers of the enemy did not seem to diminish. Where were they coming from?

He found out. The shrews were swimming out into the river and recurving to land within the protected semicircle! Most of them did not make it, since there was no coherent organization to their advance; they either got caught in the fringe fire or went straight across to land on the opposite shore. Many drowned in the center current, and more died fighting in the water for the corpses, but the supply was such that even five or ten per cent drifting back into the open area behind the parapet was enough. to overrun the area.

Would alcohol dumped directly into the river stop them? Sos ruled it out quickly. There was not enough left, and if it did not do the job the entire human party could be trapped by the lingering fires of its own defense, while the animals inundated the base.

He decided to cut his losses. The shrews had won this battle. "Evacuate!"

The men, once contemptuous of the enemy, had had enough. Shrews decorated arms and legs and wriggled in pantaloons and carpeted the ground, teeth everywhere. Warriors dived into the river and swam for safety, ducking under the surface whenever they could, in full retreat. Sos made a quick check to see that no wounded remained, and followed.

It was now late afternoon. Was there time to move the tents back before nightfall?-Or would the shrews stop before reaching the present encampment? He had to decide in a hurry.

He could not take the risk. "Pick up tents and move back as far as you can before dusk," he shouted. "Single men may camp here and stand guard." He had stored the duplicate packs within the enclosure-in case the shrews attacked from the unexpected side of the river, and those reserves were now inaccessible. Another error in judgment-yet until he was sure of the route and timing of the hordes, such losses would occur.

The shrews did not ascend the hill that night. This species, at least, was a daytime marauder. Perhaps the moths saw to that. In the morning the main body, gorged on its casualties and still numberless, crossed the river and marched downstream. Only a few hardy climbers on the outskirts reached the tents.

Sos looked about. He could not assume that this was a safe location, and it was certainly not as convenient as the valley plain. There was no more wildlife here than below. It might merely mean that the shrews' route was random; obviously they could overrun the hill if they chose to. Most likely they followed the general contours of the land, ascending where there was smoother going, and came down at this point when they came this way.

At least he had learned one thing: the shrews traveled only in the group, and thus were governed by group dynamics. He strained to remember the commentary in a complex text on the subject, that he had not suspected would ever have meaningful application to his life. Groups were shaped by leaders and reflected the personalities and drives of those leaders; divert the key individuals, and you diverted the pack. He would have to think about that, and apply it to this situation.

It would also be wise to spy on the continuing progress of the horde and learn for certain what finally happened to it. And to trace its origin-there might be a restricted breeding ground that could be put to the fire before the next swarm became a menace. He bad been preoccupied with defense, and he saw now that that wouldn't work.

By noon the enemy was gone, and the men were able to recover their campsite. It was a ruin; even nylon was marked by the bite of myriad teeth and fouled by layers of dung.

A committee plunged eagerly into the problem of shrew tracing and diversion, while women and children moved into the main semicircle to clean up and pitch new tents. It seemed as safe a place as any, since the following horde would starve if it followed the identical route of this one. The next shrew foray was more likely to come down the opposite bank. Besides, there was a great deal of laundry to do in the river.

The bones and gear of the missing hunting party were discovered three miles upriver. Suddenly everyone appreciated the menace properly, and no more grumbles about the work were heard. Sos, too, was treated with somewhat more respect than hitherto. He had proved his point.